Sunday, November 2, 2014

The Warship And A World War Simulator

Today I have two archive shots from the War Museum. I'll no doubt be back up there for Remembrance Day in a few days. This is a model of a Canadian warship that was involved in the Normandy invasion.

In the Cold War section of the museum, a mockup of a military command center is set up, running simulations on what might have happened had World War Three broken out between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. There's more than one simulation, because I've sat through on a couple of occasions and watched it play itself out with different results. News headlines scroll on the screen, a casualty rate gets displayed, and military engagements and other events get highlighted as the simulation goes along.

When the casualty rates keep going higher and higher, you breathe a sigh of relief that the Cold War never got out of control. Twenty five years after that momentous fall of 1989.... a war room simulation like this still gives you chills.

39 comments:

Good one, William. When discussing the Cold War with my son, he asked "How did you cope?" Unfortunately, the fallout from the Cold War is still with us. Question: Is the workld safer or more dangerous than it was 30 years ago?

It does give one chills, but the current head of Russia continues his pushing and because no one wants to be involved the Middle East has become a killing field. Most people in "civilized" countries prefer that the Middle Easterners kill each other and not them. I fear it will continue until it does draw the rest of the world into it.

I think that old film war games comes to mind. The cold war of the 60's scared me as a kid but the second never gave a thought, it was beond anything I could do even if there was a missile base 20 miles away